As many as 100 people, including fishermen and tribals, held an innovative protest in 10 fishing boats in the sea as part of the ‘Asia Day Against Gas Expansion’ against the activities that are against the objectives of the Paris Agreement that combats Climate Change.

Mines, Minerals & PEOPLE (MM&P), an NGO, organised the protest on behalf of international organisations Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), Asian Energy Network, Don’t Gas Asia, and Don’t Gas The South, on the Bay of Bengal along the Visakhapatnam coast.

Speaking to The Hindu, MM&P chairperson Ravi Rebbapragada said, “We held the protest on the Bay of Bengal along the Visakhapatnam coast. We are members of international organisations, and similarly along the west coast, at Palghar in Maharastra, and some places in Gujarat as well, similar protests were held against the activities that affect the environment and go against the objectives of the Paris Agreement.”

Apart from local fishermen, tribals from Borra Caves and other parts of ASR district also participated in the protest by holding placards in the 10 boats in the sea, Mr. Ravi added.

“The Paris Agreement is an international treaty that aims to limit global warming and help countries adapt to climate change. It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris on December 12 in 2015, and entered into force on November 4, 2016,” Mr. Ravi said.

“World leaders of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is an international treaty among countries to combat dangerous human interference with climate change, have stressed the need to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century,” he said.

“Even as the world is facing a climate change-induced crisis year after year, gas projects continue to rise at a pace faster than how countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This prompted us to launch the protest against the expansion of the gas projects with placards saying ‘Stop Gas Expansion’, ‘Stop Financing Natural Gas’ & ‘No to Gas & LNG’. However, the solution is renewable energy. Gas is not a transition fuel. Fossil gas is harmful for the planet, toxic to humans, and expensive. So, don’t gas the south,” Mr. Ravi said.

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The plight of the Putel family came to the attention of Holenarasipura officials through social media after their videos were posted by an NGO on the micro-blogging platform X.

A family of four who had been forced to work as bonded labourers at a brick factory in Hassan district in Karnataka were rescued by Revenue Department officials on July 2. The brick factory owner Sathish was arrested by the Holenarasipura police on July 4.

According to the police, the rescued family, Mokardaj Putel, 35, his wife Urmila Putel, 27, and their two children, aged 11 and 5, hail from Balangir district in Odisha. They had migrated to Mandya, Karnataka, three years ago in search of employment. Initially working in a brickmaking unit in Mandya, the family moved to Jodi Gubbi village in Holenarasipura taluk of Hassan, lured by the promise of better wages and an advance payment of Rs 17,000 from Sathish.

Sathish had promised the family Rs 800 for every 1,000 bricks they produced daily and provided them with shelter and cooking supplies. However, they were not paid for their work over the last three years and were not allowed to move freely or visit their native place.

The plight of the Putel family came to the attention of Holenarasipura officials through social media after their videos were posted by an NGO on the micro-blogging platform X. Tahsildar KK Krishnamurthy, along with other officials, rescued the family and relocated them to a post-metric hostel of the Social Welfare Department in Ambedkar Nagar, Holenarasipura.

According to Labour Inspector Yamuna, the family will be sent back to Odisha only after they have been registered as bonded labourers. “The Revenue Department is in the process of declaring them as bonded labourers. Once they are registered as bonded labourers, they will be rehabilitated by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department. Their bank accounts will be opened and we will need their identity proof,” Yamuna said. She added that the family does not have any identification documents, which has slowed the process.

Sathish, the brick kiln owner, faces multiple charges under sections 143 (trafficking of a person) and 146 (unlawful compulsory labour) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, sections 16 (punishment for enforcement of bonded labour), 17 (punishment for advancement of bonded debt), and 18 (punishment for extracting bonded labour under the bonded labour system) of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, and section 3 (prohibition of employment of children in certain occupations and processes) of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act.

According to The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, a bonded labourer is a person who is forced to work under certain conditions. A primary condition is debt bondage, where the individual is compelled to work as a result of any pre-existing debt or obligation. This can include work without wages or for nominal wages, or work to repay an advance or loan taken by themselves or their family. Bonded labour also encompasses situations where the labour or service is given due to coercion, and the person cannot freely leave the employment.

The Act specifically addresses cases where the debtor, or any of their family members, are forced to work as a result of a debt, and their freedom to move or to seek alternative employment is restricted. It also covers conditions of labour that are exploitative or harsh, and situations where the amount of the debt is such that it is virtually impossible to repay, leading to a state of continuous bondage.

The post Karnataka: Odisha family rescued from bonded labour in Hassan, factory owner arrested appeared first on SAMATA.

Activity picks up at plant, power plant trial run held

Anrak Aluminium Limited (AAL) which was set up in 2014 with an investment of around ₹6,000 crore at Rachapalle in Makavarapalem mandal of Visakhpatnam district, is yet to go into production. The plant was set up with an installed capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per year, but with the cancellation of G.O. 97 by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government and the company failing to get a linkage for bauxite ore, the operation of the plant has been stalled. Now there are strong rumours that the company is gearing up to start production and it is learnt that initially February 5 was the date given but it had to be postponed to a later date.

Initially, G.O. 97 had given permission to the plant to mine bauxite ore in Gudem and Chintapalle block in Visakhapatnam Agency, and the mining was to be done by the A.P. Mineral Development Corporation in the reserve forest area. But due to stiff resistance from the tribals who followed the Niyamgiri model of agitation, the YSRCP government had cancelled the G.O., sticking to its election promise. AAL, a joint venture between Penna Group and Ras Al-Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA), has been waiting since then to establish a bauxite linkage and start production.

Sources say that it has been importing bauxite ore from abroad and building up its stock. It is also learnt that AAL is going the Vedanta way that has an alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Odisha. After Vedanta failed to get its linkage from Niyamgiri due to the resistance, it had established linkages from other States such as Rajasthan and Gujarat. Sources say that apart from importing bauxite, AAL is also planning to take one mine from Vedanta on lease to establish domestic linkage. However, no AAL official could be contacted for confirmation.

Sources say that a railway line is being laid from Bayyavaram in Kasimkota mandal to Makavarapalem, along with a siding to unload bauxite.

Hinting that something is on at the company, a few employees confirmed that hectic maintenance activity was on and the trial run of the power plant has been conducted successfully.

Ravi Rebbapragada of Samata, who was the architect of the Samata Judgement, based on which mining in the Fifth Schedule area by private parties was banned, said, “We do not mind if AAL imports bauxite or takes a mine on lease in some other State, but it cannot mine in Fifth Schedule areas.”

The post AAL going for production shortly? appeared first on SAMATA.

Villagers near Andhra-Odisha border are fighting the state for calcite reserves two decades after securing Supreme Court victory

In 1997, the residents of Nimmalapadu, a village in Andhra Pradesh, achieved the unthinkable: They won a legal battle against the state government and a private company to save their village from mining.

The Supreme Court overruled a 1993 Andhra Pradesh High Court order in favour of the state government, it declared that only people belonging to the Konda Dora tribe and their cooperatives can exploit the minerals in Fifth Schedule areas and that private mining here, even with government backing, is illegal.

The verdict, popularly called the Samata judgement after the name of the non-profit that helped the people fight the case, adds that even if the state government decides to mine directly, it needs to keep the interest of the tribal people first.

Yet, over two decades later, the residents of the village near the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border are fighting the state over their calcite reserves. Calcite is a mineral that is used in building material, abrasives, soil treatment, construction aggregate, pigment, and other applications.

The residents allege that the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC), the state agency responsible for mining licences, has issued licences five times since 1997 to cooperatives or individuals from the state belonging to the Konda Dora community. Every time, it has found new ways to keep the people out of the process.

“The Durga Sandstone MAC Society gave Rs 2 lakh per year to people whose land was brought under mining. Landless residents were given Rs 1 lakh per year. It also enrolled some of the residents as members and gave them a salary,” says Latchanna Rao of adjoining Karakavalasa village.

The most recent attempt to undermine the people was made on March 16, 2021, when APMDC floated a tender to mine calcite in a 32.7-ha area, which will impact Nimmalapadu along with the neighbouring Karakavalasa and Ralagaravu villages. Within days of the tender, the residents got a stay order from the High Court on the grounds that they will not be able to apply as the tender only allowed bidding by contractors with experience in heavy-mechanised mining.

The petition was filed by Sri Abhaya Girijana Mutually Aided Labour Cooperative Society, a group floated by the residents who worked with Durga Sandstone MAC Society, and now want to mine directly.

“Our elders never wanted mining. But seeing the government’s persistence, we have decided it is better if we get involved,” says Chompi Balaraju, a member of the cooperative.

In April last year, APMDC removed the contentious clause and awarded a five-year-long mining licence to two contractors who belong to the Konda Dora community but are not from the three villages.

“The contractors have no experience in mining and will remain responsible for the mines only on paper. Private players, whom the people have been fighting for long, will start to exploit the land through them,” says Ravi Rebbapragada, executive director of non-profit Samata.

He adds that if the government was serious, it would award the contract to the people’s cooperative. The contractors can extract 4,000 million tonnes of calcite every month and will pay APMDC a fee of Rs 448 per tonne.

The residents allege the government agency has also not taken a go-ahead from the three gram sabhas before awarding the licences, as mandated under the Provisions of The Panchayats (Extension to The Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996.

“While 18 families have land in the proposed mining area, there are at least 130 families who are either agricultural labourers or cultivate on government land for generations without legal rights. All of them need to be compensated,” says Rebbapragada.

Based on their learnings from 2012, the residents are demanding royalty for their land, besides annuity till the time the project is operational. They also want a fund for rehabilitating the land after the company is gone. Other demands include employment, land for land, a cellular tower, a 24-hour doctor, and transportation facilities.

“Most of our demands are about development, which is ideally the work of the government. But the state has punished us for not allowing private mining. It has not carried out any developmental projects in the region since the 1970s when calcite was first found in the area,” says 60-year-old Pandana, who had actively participated in the struggle.

The nearest hospital is in Bobbili, a town some 40 km away. “There is a surge in malaria and typhoid cases because of poor sanitation. We also do not have good roads or reliable mobile connectivity,” says Balaraju. Education is another challenge with most children forced to travel to other villages or cities to attend good schools.

In December 2021, the contractors and APMDC proposed that they will only mine government land, and asked residents for approval. The residents have in response demanded `1.50 lakh per acre (0.4 ha) for families cultivating on government land. They also said that if the land adjoining the mines gets disturbed, the contractor will have to compensate for the same.

“Durya Rukmani, a former mandal parishad president and one of the new contractors, is trying to convince us informally. His people are organising cultural events and festivals. But we will not budge till the time they agree to all our demands and sign a legal contract for the same,” says Balaraju.

The post Nimmalapadu’s protracted struggle: Despite legal win, 3 Andhra tribal villages fight to save land from mining appeared first on SAMATA.

VIJAYAWADA: The disquiet among the Adivasi community in the tribal regions of Visakhapatnam has been rising in recent months as the state government appears to be turning a blind eye to critical rulings by the courts, including the Supreme Court, on the rights of Adivasis to their land.<!–more–>

One important ruling on the rights of the Adivasis was given by the Supreme Court in July 1997. In its judgment filed in the lawsuit brought by Samata, a non-governmental organisation, the apex court declared null and void the transfer of land in the scheduled areas and also upheld the Forest Protection Act of 1980.

“The Supreme Court decision, which has since been called the Samata judgment, is by far the most progressive of rulings, but unfortunately its efficacy has been steadily diluted in AP and other states,” says Ravi Rebbapragada, who is the executive director of Samata, which had brought the lawsuit against the AP government. The Samata ruling had allocated 20% of the net profit to the local area development councils in the states, but somehow that order has been followed more in the breach than in practice, Rebbapragada claimed.

The AP government has also been tardy in enforcing laws pertaining to the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, which governs the laws in Adivasi land. “While the AP government has not given any licence for mining of bauxite in the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam, it has allowed the mining of laterite, which is also illegal. More importantly, the government has been allowing plains people to illegally set up so-called tourism projects in Agency areas like Lambasingi, Paderu and Anantagiri,” Rebbapragada alleged.

“The Adivasis are even not paid minimum wages. They are treated like slaves by owners of guest houses and hotels and other attractions in these places,” Rebbapragada said.

Apart from over-exploiting the fragile ecology of the Agency areas, tourists have made a mess of the region with rampant littering. “Dallapalli has been almost drowned in single-use plastic bags and other litter, which has not been removed by the administration, making it clear that it wants to exploit the Agency areas at the expense of the Adivasis who have been living in the region for generations, eking a living out of the forests,” he added.

The alleged continuing onslaught on Adivasi rights has prompted them to get together to launch an agitation for the protection of the Fifth Schedule rights. The community held a massive show of strength in Paderu on February 12 which was attended by over one lakh people. A joint action committee of the Adivasis has also requested the AP government to resolve their issues at the earliest.

According to EAS Sarma, a former Union expenditure secretary, Adivasis’ land was being commandeered illegally by plains people on the pretext of setting up hotels in Anantagiri, Paderu and Lambasingi .

The post Vijayawada: Disquiet in Agency areas over violation of SC orders appeared first on SAMATA.

संविधान के जानकार विश्वनाथ सिंह सरदार ने कहा कि झारखंड उन दस राज्यों में शामिल जिसमें भारतीय संविधान की पांचवी अनुसूची लागू होती है। इसलिए शिड्यूल एरिया में खनन लीज और जमीन अधिग्रहण के लिए ग्राम सभा की अनुमति जरूरी है। ग्राम सभा की अनुमति के बिना शिड्यूल एरिया में खनन अथवा उद्योग नहीं लगाया जा सकता है। इसके लिए ग्राम सभा होना जरूरी है। शिड्यूल एरिया में किसी कीमत पर गैर आदिवासी और कारपोरेट को खनन पट्टा नहीं दिया जा सकता है। इस सम्बंध ने सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने भी आदेश दिया है। विश्वनाथ सिंह सरदार सोमवार को राजनगर प्रखंड के चंवरबांधा गांव में ग्रामीणों को संविधान में उल्लेखित उनके अधिकारों एवं नियमों की जानकारी दे रहे थे। उन्होंने कहा कि शिड्यूल एरिया में किसी कीमत पर गैर आदिवासी और कारपोरेट को खनन पट्टा नहीं दिया जा सकता है। अगर इस क्षेत्र में खनन करना है तो सरकार खुद या फिर ट्राइबल की सोसाइटी बनाकर यह काम कर सकती है। उन्होंने कहा कि राज्य में समता जजमेंट कड़ाई से लागू होना चाहिया। मौके पर उनके साथ वीरेन पाल, झामुमो के केंद्रीय सदस्य हिरालाल सतपथी, रुद्रप्रताप महतो आदि उपस्थित थे।

The post शिड्यूल एरिया में गैर आदिवासी को खनन लीज का हक देना गलत : विश्वनाथ appeared first on SAMATA.

A civil rights organization, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JJM) suspects that “growing influence” of Satipati cult, started in Gujarat, exhorting people to boycott government schemes and elections, on one hand, and religious practices of Adivasis, on the other, may be behind the recent killing of seven persons in Burugulikera village, West Singhbhum district, Jharkahnd.

Members of the cult believe that Kunwar Keshri Singh (and now his son) is the owner of India and the actual “Bharat Sarkaar”, as agreed upon with the colonial rulers. It asks Adivasis to join the cult to save their jal, jangal, zameen (water, woods, land) and their community from exploitation, says JJM in a note prepared on the basis of a fact-finding investigation, carried by representatives of several Adivasi organizations following the gruesome killing.

Organized by the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), the team, says a JJM note, released at a press conference, also seeks to deny those claiming that the Pathalgadi movement is behind the killings.

It says, Pathalgadi is a “traditional practice of Munda Adivasis of erecting stone slabs (pathals) in honour of their ancestors, to announce important decisions of their families and villages or to simply mark the village boundary”, even as asserting their Constitutional rights over natural resources in the sixth schedule areas.

Asserting that the movement and the cult “are primarily driven by the continuing alienation of Adivasis, attack on their natural resources, weakening of the traditional Adivasi governance system and lack of development based the Adivasis’ needs and worldview”, the note, however , says that the Pathalgarhi movement, unlike the Satipati cult, is “a non-violent response to specific policies of the government.”

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On January 22-23, 2020, local media reported the beheading of seven people in Burugulikera village (Gudri block, West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand). Most of the reports held the Pathalgadi movement responsible for the killings. To understand the role of Pathalgadi in the killings, a fact-finding team comprising of activists, writers and journalists visited Burugulikera.

The team had representatives of Adivasi Buddhijivi Manch, Adivasi Adhikar Manch (Adivasi Women’s Network, National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM), Johar, Marxist Coordination Committee, Ulgulan Sena and other organisations, Many organisations are associated with Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha . The visit was facilitated by NAPM and Mahasabha.

Initial media reports indicated that the pro-Pathalgadi faction of the village had murdered members of the anti-Pathalgadi faction for opposing their movement. The fact-finding team found that more than half of the total number of families of the village was followers of the AC (Ante-Christ) Kutumb Pariwar (also known as Satipati) cult.

The cult was led by Ranasi Budh and a few others, accused of killing James Budh and six others of the village. The cult, active since the past year in the village, asked people to submit their ration card, aadhaar card, voter card and stop use of all government schemes such Public Distribution System, social security pension, the Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana and so on.

More than half of the families submitted the documents, while James and many others did not. The documents were not forcefully taken but people were sometimes told that they would not be considered Adivasis or be expelled from the village if they did not submit. People were asked to submit their Khatiyan (land documents) too which many did not.

James Budh, Up-Mikhiya (vice-president) of the Gram Panchayat, used to get government schemes implemented and objected to the call for giving up schemes. Ranasi Budh’s wife Mukta Horo was the ex-Mukhiya and they also used to get schemes implemented earlier. The Satipati cult supporters also asked others not to go to Church or celebrate Sarna (Adivasi) festivals. These were also the causes of constant friction between the two factions.

On January 16, a day after local Maghe Parv (an Adivasi festival), James Budh and his friends attacked the houses of Ranasi Budh and four others. They broke their cycles, motorbikes, television and ransacked their houses. They also allegedly took away two persons, Lodro Budh and Roshan Barjo with them.

According to the families whose houses were attacked, the attackers were also accompanied by armed members of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a Maoist splinter group, known to have initially received state support). Some villagers shared that James Budh was close to a local PLFI leader, Mangra Lugun.

On 19 January, Ranasi Budh and other Satipati cult supporters brought the attackers from their homes to a meeting to allegedly discuss the attack on their houses. The meeting was mainly attended by Satipati supporters. From the testimonies of Satipati supporters and family members of the victims, it emerged that the seven people were beaten to death in the meeting and then beheaded.

While several questions regarding the killings remain unanswered, people’s testimonies indicate that there were two factions in the village – the Satipati cult supporters and non-supporters – and there was friction between the two because of the cult’s call to give up cultural practices and government schemes.

While the exact reason for the attack on houses of Satipati supporters and killing of non-supporters is difficult to ascertain, the testimonies, possible involvement of PLFI, randomness of the violence and history of scheme implementation by Ranasi and James also indicate that this friction may not be the only reason for the killing.

We hope that the Special Investigating Team (SIT) constituted for inquiring into the killings will be able to provide answers to these questions. The incident also brings to light the growing influence of the Satipati cult in the Munda-Kolhan area of Jharkhand.
There is a need to differentiate between the Pathalgadi movement and Satipati. Pathalgadi is a traditional practice of Munda Adivasis of erecting stone slabs (pathals) in honour of their ancestors, to announce important decisions of their families and villages or to simply mark the village boundary. Since 2017, Pathals painted with Constitutional provisions for Adivasis, judicial orders and their interpretations were erected in several villages of Jharkhand.

Several fact-finding inquires have found the Pathalgadi movement to be a non-violent response to specific policies of the government; primarily its attempts to dilute land laws, failure to respect the Adivasi worldview, implementation of schemes without the consent of the Gram Sabha, non-implementation of PESA and provisions for the fifth scheduled areas and rampant violations of human rights.

While the leadership of the Pathalgadi movement may have been influenced by Satipati from the beginning, Adivasis did Pathalgadi based on their grievances, as discussed above, and traditional practices.

Since a year, the influence of AC Lutumb Pariwar cult in the Pathalgadi movement has been growing. In October 2019, a large meeting called ‘Vishwa Adivasi Shanti Sammelan’ was convened in Gutigeda village of Khunti’s Murhu block, mainly by followers of the cult. Satipati supporters from Burugulikera also participated in this meeting.

The Hemant Soren government should investigate the influence of Gujarat’s Satipati cult’s influence on Jharkhand, even as redressing long-standing grievances of Adivasis

The cult, which started in Gujarat, believes that Kunwar Keshri Singh (and now his son) is the owner of India and the actual “Bharat Sarkaar”, as agreed upon with the colonial rulers. The cult followers are expected to boycott government schemes and also elections. For becoming part of the “family”, Adivasis are to follow a specific puritan life, as propagated by the cult.

The cult rejects religious practices of Adivasis (such as going to Church or celebrating Sarna festivals) and traditional practices (such as Pathalgadi). They ask Adivasis to join the cult to save their jal, jangal, zameen (water, woods, land) and their community from exploitation. In Burugulikera village also, some people (not directly associated with the accused) shared that they gave up ration card and other government services to save their land.

As exposed in the Pathalgadi movement and the recent indication of people’s support for the Satipati cult, the movement and cult are primarily driven by the continuing alienation of Adivasis, attack on their natural resources, weakening of the traditional Adivasi governance system and lack of development based the Adivasis’ needs and worldview.
For example, there is a massive dam (and lake formed by submerging a large area) in Pansua, a few kilometres away from Burugulikera. But the village does not get water from the lake.

The Burugulikera incident has again exposed the local media’s bias against Adivasis’ worldview, issues and demands. Without doing a ground report, several reports, initially, held Pathalgadi responsible for the killings and there was hardly any mention of the Satipati cult.

The earlier Raghubar Das government’s repression of people of Pathalgadi villages and silence on the growing influence of satipati in the state also raises questions.
While the Hemant Soren government needs to investigate the influence of Gujarat’s Satipati cult to expand to Jharkhand, it also needs to redress the long-standing grievances of the Adivasis. To address their alienation, the government should implement the provisions of the fifth schedule, PESA, Samata judgement and other pro-Adivasi laws in letter and spirit.

It should also ensure that its development vision is based on Adivasi worldview and needs. To begin with, it should initiate dialogue with representatives of Pathalgadi villages, satipati villages, Adivasi organisations and constitutional experts to better understand people’s grievances and their demands.

The post Growing influence of Gujarat’s Satipati cult ’caused’ Jharkhand Burugulikera killings appeared first on SAMATA.

Adivasis say they are being hounded for invoking the Constitution to protect their land rights.

After Haryana and Maharashtra, we travelled to Jharkhand where state assembly elections will be held in five phases starting from November 30. In Khunti district, an hour from the state capital, Ranchi, Adivasi villages are debating whether to boycott the elections as part of a protest movement called Pathalgadi, which literally means the laying of stones.

The movement started in 2017 when stone monoliths engraved with provisions of the Indian Constitution began to be installed in the villages of Khunti. The engravings highlighted the special autonomy granted to Adivasi areas under the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

The Jharkhand police responded to the Adivasi assertion with a crackdown, filing cases against thousands of people.

Scroll.in has accessed 19 first information reports filed by the police in Khunti district between June 2017 and July 2018, which charge more than 11,200 people with a host of offences related to disturbing public order.

One of the offences made in 14 FIRs, which feature more than 10,000 people as the accused, is sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code. A relic of colonial rule, the section punishes anyone seen to “excite, or attempt to excite feelings of disaffection against the government” with terms that could include life imprisonment.

The 10,000 Adivasis accused of sedition constitute two percent of Khunti’s population. The actual number of sedition-accused in the district could, in fact, be higher since it is widely believed that there are more than just 19 FIRs against Pathalgadi supporters.

The 19 FIRs that we examined identify 132 people by name, many of whom have been named in multiple FIRs. Forty-three of the accused are village chiefs. The rest are “unknown”, which has created a chilling effect in the district as villagers fear the police could indiscriminately implicate anyone in the cases in the future.

Strikingly, Khunti district is home to two of the most popular historical figures from Jharkhand. One is Birsa Munda who was killed in 1900 at the young age of 25 after he led a powerful rebellion against the British. The other is Jaipal Singh Munda, a charismatic hockey player who led India to a gold medal in the 1928 Olympics and went on to become one of the most prominent Adivasi voices in the Constituent Assembly that ratified the Indian Constitution in 1950.

Seven decades later, Adivasis say they are being hounded for invoking the Constitution to protect their land rights.

Among those interviewed for this article are 10 people who were either charged, arrested and imprisoned in the cases, or whose relatives faced police action, which in one case resulted in death.

Birsa Munda: I am a duplicate Birsa Munda, not the real one. (laughs)

The customary chief of Bhandra village cracked a joke as he sat down to discuss the sedition case against him. At 79 years of age, he had a toothy smile and cloudy eyes but also muscles strong enough to carry water canisters on a shoulder pole, which he placed on the ground when he saw us outside his mud house. Plastic chairs were pulled out from the homes of neighbours and placed in a circle under the shade of a tree, and a small group of men joined the discussion.

Supriya Sharma: When did you come to know you had been charged with sedition?

Birsa Munda: About a year ago. I heard they were filing cases against Mundas (customary village chiefs) and then someone told me there is also a case against me.

Not one case, but three, as Scroll.in found. The first case was filed in 2017, another two in 2018, both of which include the charge of sedition.

Supriya Sharma: Had you heard of sedition before this?

Birsa Munda: No, never.

It wasn’t just the chief’s name that harked back to revolutionary times.

The Pathalgadi movement itself was sparked by concerns over a dilution of the legacy of the original Birsa Munda. Eight years after he died, the rebellion he led forced the colonial government to pass the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act in 1908 to protect tribal land rights. It was the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s decision in 2016 to dilute provisions of this Act that laid the ground for Pathalgadi, a young man in his twenties explained. His name too, incidentally, was Birsa Munda.

Birsa Munda, junior: We were travelling to Ranchi in October 2016 to take part in a rally to protest the changes [to the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act] when news came that the police had fired upon people and killed one Adivasi. In a democracy, if we could not go on a rally to ask for our rights, then we thought it best to stay within our villages and declare our rights under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution right here.

On March 3, 2017, Bhandra became the first village to erect a painted green stone monolith with engravings from the Indian Constitution.

Mangal Munda of nearby Chamdih village and Maki Tuti of Bhandra village explained the impulse.

Mangal Munda: We were reading in the papers that the government was amending the CNT Act to give away lands to big companies. In Chukru village, 12 km from here, land was being acquired to build the new capital, Greater Ranchi…

Maki Tuti: …forcibly, without taking the approval of the gram sabha.

Mangal Munda: Now, erecting stone slabs is an old practice of our ancestors, we mark everything from birth to death by stones, so we thought why not use stones to display the rights granted to us by the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.

The residents of Bhandra village said they did not know much about the Fifth Schedule until some of them began to attend meetings organised by urban Adivasi intellectuals in the district headquarters, from 2012. These intellectuals, led by Vijay Kujur, a manager in the Shipping Corporation of India, had revived the Adivasi Mahasabha, an organisation established by Jaipal Singh Munda in 1938. The police FIRs names them as “masterminds” of the Pathalgadi movement.

But the residents of Bhandra claim the idea of installing stone monolith with excerpts from the Constitution – Samvidhan ki Pathalgadi, as they call it – was their idea, not that of the leaders.

Sumbar Tuti: We thought a board might fade or fall, but a stone will last forever. We wrote the text and then consulted some leaders and lawyers who said it was fine.

What does the stone monolith in Bhandra say?

It invokes four Articles of the Indian Constitution, in the following words:

Under Article 13(3)(a) of the Constitution of India, custom or tradition is the force of law, that is, the power of the Constitution.
Under Article 19(5), in scheduled districts or areas, no outsider or non-customary person is allowed to freely roam, reside, settle and move around.
Article 19(6) of the Constitution of India prohibits outsiders from doing business, trade or any other form of employment in scheduled areas.
Under paragraph 5(1) of Article 244(1)(b), no law passed by the Parliament and state assembly will be applicable to scheduled areas.
The text is not a verbatim reproduction of the Constitutional provisions, rather it offers a glimpse into how Adivasis in Khunti interpret them.

For instance, Article 19(5) does not directly ban outsiders from accessing scheduled areas – areas with a large presence of tribal communities. Instead, it allows the state to make laws restricting freedom of movement, residence, trade and occupation “for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe”.

Article 244(1) of the Constitution allows the Governor of a state, after consulting a Tribal Advisory Council, to notify that a law passed by Parliament and the state assembly will not be applicable to scheduled areas. The Adivasis in Khunti have interpreted this to mean that general laws can be applied to scheduled areas only after the Governor notifies them on the advice of the Tribal Advisory Council.

Here, it is important to remember that in several judgements, like the landmark Samatha judgement in 1997, Indian courts have read these provisions expansively, taking the view that the Constitution seeks to preserve the culture and autonomy of tribal communities.

But the Jharkhand government took a narrow view of the declarations on the stone monoliths. As more villages began to emulate Bhandra, instead of engaging in a discussion with the Adivasis, it started filing police cases against them.

The first bunch of FIRs were filed in the aftermath of friction between the police and Adivasis in Kanki village, not far from Bhandra, on June 22, 2017.

Maki Tuti: The villagers had built a bamboo machaan [raised platform] to protect the village. A police team came and began to ask questions in the afternoon. Then, another team showed up in the evening and slapped three people. Someone raised an alarm by ringing the village bell and people from nearby villages gathered at the spot. The policemen were asked to stay back in the village for discussions with the gram sabha, which could only be held in the morning.

The police version is somewhat different. According to an FIR dated June 25, 2017, a police team went to Kanki village after they heard that “anti-social elements” had blocked the road and were charging levies from vehicles carrying gravel and stones and from opium cultivators. In the evening, a larger police contingent went to the village and dismantled the bamboo structure to clear the road, but villagers attacked them with sticks and traditional weapons.

The FIR claims leaders of the Pathalgadi movement then appeared in the village and began to further provoke the 500-member strong crowd. By 8.30 pm, an additional director general of police arrived from Ranchi with an armed contingent. But the Adivasis held them captive for 12 hours and subjected them to questioning before letting them go in the morning, it states.

The villagers, however, deny that they used force. How could they have held an entire police contingent, they ask.

Maki Tuti: The police officials stayed back willingly and even left on an amicable note in the morning. But two days later, we heard they had filed an FIR accusing village folk of holding them captive.

Another FIR filed in the aftermath of the incident on June 24, 2017, accused the leaders of Pathalgadi of “misleading the innocent people in the name of scheduled areas”. “They are erecting stone slabs in dozens of villages and presenting the wrong interpretation of the Constitution to instigate innocent people to block the work of the administration, which is disturbing the peace in the area and creating a law and order problem,” it said.

Sumbar Tuti: If what we wrote on the stones is the wrong interpretation of the Constitution, then the administration should tell us what is the right interpretation. When we asked the officials for the right interpretation, they had no answer.

The FIRs came as a rude shock to the residents of Bhandra – so confident had they been of the constitutionality of their actions that they had informed block authorities in advance about the Pathalgadi ceremony held in their village in March. Scroll.in has a copy of the letter.

The villagers claim the police official heading the local station even attended the ceremony. In June 2017, however, the same official filed complaints leading to FIRs against them.

Neither of the two initial FIRs lists the charge of sedition, but some residents of Bhandra and nearby villages, including Sumbar Singh Tuti and Mangal Munda, were subsequently arrested for it. It is unclear if the sedition charge was added to the FIR later or they had been arrested in another case.

In 2018, both men spent ten months in prison, first in Khunti district, and then in Bokaro, 170 km away. They are currently out on bail.

Mangal Munda: We have been thinking what we could have done that we had been charged with sedition. What acts make for sedition, we do not even know that.

Supriya Sharma: Did any police official or magistrate explain this to you?

Mangal Munda: We were not presented before a magistrate.

The police also carried out kurki zabti [search and seizure] at the homes of Vikas Tuti and Balgobind Tirkey in Bhandra. For this, earthmoving machines were deployed, say their families. The homes stand completely flattened.

Jharkhand police did not respond to Scroll.in’s email which listed eight questions, including why such a drastic measure was needed for a search operation. Speaking on phone, Ashutosh Shekhar, the police superintendent of Khunti, said he could not respond to the questions until the assembly elections were over.

Tirkey’s young daughter-in-law said the police took away all their possessions, including personal belongings she had brought from her maternal home.

As Pathalgadi spread to villages in three blocks of Khunti district – Khunti, Murhu, Arki – more police cases followed, charging thousands of Adivasis with sedition. Here are some excerpts from the FIRs:

FIR number 17/18 filed on February 2, 2018 in Khunti police station

…the gram pradhans are issuing orders with the Ashoka symbol of the Indian government in which people are being asked not to participate in national festivals like Republic Day and August 15 and in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, assembly and panchayat elections. Orders have also been passed asking the Hindu society to stop burning the effigies of Maharaja Ravana and Mahishasura and describing them as demons.

FIR number 11/18 filed on February 9, 2018 in Murhu police station

…When the employees and officials of the government go to the villages to perform their duties, the gram pradhans ask them unconstitutional questions. In this way, members of the above named Adivasi organisation are accused of actions that are anti-democratic, anti-government and anti-national, against the soul of the Constitution and causing social disharmony.

FIR number 33/18 filed on March 3, 2018 in Khunti police station

The self-described leaders of the Pathalgadi movement… are going from village to village asking people to oppose developmental schemes of the government, stop sending children to school… stop officials of the police and administration from entering the village, turn down government subsidies and making provocative speeches against the nation and the democratic system.

Scroll.in asked the police to explain what made these acts seditious but there was no response.

While the laying of stone monoliths is an age-old Munda Adivasi tradition, used by activists in the 1990s to educate villagers on the Panchayat (Extension) to Scheduled Areas Act, other elements – like the rejection of government schemes, the boycott of elections, the use of symbols to proclaim a distinct Adivasi state – were infused from the millenarian cult of Satipati in Gujarat.

For more insight into the way the ideas came to be blended, read sociologist Nandini Sundar’s account of a Pathalgadi meeting she attended in May 2018. Or watch this interview of Joseph Purti, one of the leaders of the movement, a former government college lecturer who is now on the run.

Despite the crackdown, stone monoliths continued to spring up in other districts of Jharkhand. The movement even spread to Adivasi areas in neighbouring states like Chhattisgarh, where a former Indian Administrative Service officer, an Adivasi, was among those arrested by the police.

Most Pathalgadi leaders belonged to the educated urban middle-class, many held government jobs. But Jharkhand government chose to characterise the movement as funded by Maoists, Christian missionaries and opium cultivators, ignoring its wide appeal.

A young resident of Ghaghra village in Khunti district explained why the movement resonated with him – it tallied with his lived experience.

Young man: The government takes away our land and gives us schemes we do not need. These schemes came to the village without consulting us. The administration does its man marzi. The contractors are from outside.

He said his village’s decision to lay a stone monolith was preceded by careful deliberation.

Young man: After the first ceremony happened Bhandra side, we began to attend all Pathalgadi meetings. We listened to what was being said and did our own research to verify the claims. We spent a year on this. The government was saying [the text on the slabs] was a wrong interpretation of the Constitution, but they were not spelling out the right interpretation. So we became convinced that the claims were right.

Attending the meetings was like mass education.

Young man: We had heard abua disum, abua raj [our land, our rule – a slogan coined by Birsa Munda in the 19th century]. But no one had told us the Constitution provides three different schemes of governance – one for general areas, another for tribal areas under the Sixth Schedule and the Fifth Schedule, and third under Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir. By doing Pathalgadi, we wanted to remind the government about this. We were not even asking for new laws, we were just asking for existing laws to be implemented.

The young man asked for his identity to be protected since he feared he could become a target of the police, which could add his name to any of the FIRs. The people of his village, Ghaghra, were particularly vulnerable, he said, since the Pathalgadi ceremony held there on June 26, 2018, had turned into a major flashpoint.

The ceremony was held just days after the police filed a rape case against some of the leaders of the Pathalgadi movement. As thousands of Adivasis gathered in the village to attend the ceremony, the police showed up looking for the leaders. The villagers allege the police hit them with lathis and took some people captive. In anger, the villagers detained three police guards posted at the home of the local MLA at a nearby village.

The standoff continued till next morning. The police claimed in an FIR filed on June 27, 2018, that after its entreaties went unheard, it was forced to open a lathicharge on the gathering. But the villagers allege not only did the police hit the attendees with sticks, it even dragged out people from homes and beat them.

Young man: Itna zabardast mara, dauda dauda kar mara. They chased us and beat us badly.

The villagers allege the police opened fired upon the fleeing Adivasis, which led to the death of a resident of Chamdih village named Birsa Munda. An image shows him lying on the ground face-up with blood oozing from the back of his head. The police claims he died in the stampede, but his brother, Sanika Munda, disputed this.

Sanika Munda: In the hospital in Ranchi, I heard a woman doctor say the wound on his head could have only been caused by a bullet. When we brought the body home from the hospital, I saw how badly his head was ruptured just above the ear.

Despite several attempts, the brother has not been able to get a copy of the postmortem report. Scroll.in asked Khunti police for a copy but there was no response.

Meanwhile, the customary chief of Ghaghra village, Karam Singh Munda, is among those arrested on charges of murder and sedition. His wife said he had been transferred to a prison in Hazaribagh, 145 km away, which made it more difficult for the family to keep in touch with him.

Strikingly, of the 132 names in the 19 FIRs analysed by Scroll.in, 43 are gram pradhans or village chiefs. Birsa Munda, the chief of Bhandra village, said it was an intimidation tactic to silence entire villages.

Twenty km from Bhandra, another village chief, Baijnath Pahan of Kewra village, was back home after spending eight months in prison. The police had charged him with sedition even before the laying of the stone slab in his village. Pahan traced the case to friction between villagers and the police after it set up a camp inside the village school building.

Baijnath Pahan: Some women were returning from the market when policemen misbehaved with them. Then, a man from a nearby village was cycling home when the police asked him to carry wood to their camp. He refused, saying the load was too much for the cycle, but they forced him. His cycle got damaged. I got a notice from his village asking me why I had allowed the police to set up camp in my village.

It was another matter that the police had actually not asked him, he added. But after consulting the gram sabha, he decided to go and raise these concerns with the police. The meeting turned heated.

Baijnath Pahan: Halla hua, maar peet nahi hua. There was no physical violence, only loud words. But the police wrote an FIR accusing us of carrying sticks and weapons into the police station.

The actual accusation in the FIR dated March 13, 2018, is far worse: Pahan and 300 others have been accused of capturing the police station and snatching weapons from the hands of police officers, all as part of the larger seditious Pathalgadi movement.

Apart from Pahan, the police arrested Neta Nag, another resident of Kewda, who is still in prison in Dumka, 400 km away.

Baijnath Pahan: He barely used to attend the village meetings. Bahut anpad aadmi hai, he is an illiterate man, he doesn’t even know Hindi, what netagiri will he do. He subsisted by selling firewood.

Neta Nag’s son, Pitta Nag, said he could not afford to travel to Dumka to meet his father.

With fear pervading the district, the stone-laying ceremonies have largely come to a halt. But a quiet protest is still underway: entire villages are giving up their Aadhaar cards and ration cards and declining to take government food rations. While some villages have burnt the cards, others have collected them and sent them by post to the Governor’s office.

Another form of protest that the Adivasis have adopted is election boycott. Many villages did not cast votes in the Lok Sabha elections held in the summer.

Mangal Munda: Gandhi ji did non-cooperation, we were doing the same.

Sumbar Tuti: We stayed away from the festival of democracy, because no one was talking about or valuing our customary rights, our gram sabha.

Many believe the election boycott served the interests of the BJP, which pulled off a surprise victory in the Lok Sabha with a narrow margin of 1,445 votes, largely because many Adivasis, who would have voted against the party, stayed away.

Sumbar Tuti: We did not take part in the elections but we were hopeful that the BJP will be defeated and the Congress will win, but the tables turned, we don’t know how. We had thought if the Congress wins, it might take up our cause.

Supriya Sharma: The state has previously been ruled by Congress and other non-BJP parties. Were those governments more thoughtful towards Adivasis?

Sumbar Tuti: They too did not care for us, but at least they looted us less. The BJP government has treated Adivasis very badly. Forget us [Pathalgadi supporters], even women anganwadi workers were beaten like animals by policemen, young people asking for reservations were beaten up…

Despite the anger against the BJP, knowing well that an election boycott would help the party, many Adivasi villages in Khunti seem to be veering towards staying away from the upcoming assembly polls.

Young man from Ghaghra village: The governor needs to issue a separate notification for elections in scheduled areas on the advice of the Tribal Advisory Council. Unless he does that, elections here are illegal.

Dayamani Barla, an Adivasi social activist who is contesting the assembly elections in Khunti on a ticket of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, believes an election boycott is a bad idea – not merely because it helps the BJP.

Dayamani Barla: If Jaipal Singh Munda had not been elected to the Constituent Assembly, would we even have had the Fifth Schedule?

Tomorrow, in this series, we examine the question of an election boycott more closely in a conversation with Dayamani Barla on Pathalgadi and Indian democracy.

The post 10,000 people charged with sedition in one Jharkhand district. What does democracy mean here? appeared first on SAMATA.

चाईबासा : अखिल भारतीय क्रांतिकारी आदिवासी महासभा के बैनर तले एसीसी सीमेंट कंपनी चाईबासा को एफ-3 का नया लीज की स्वीकृति के विरोध में राजंका, कोंदवा, दोकट्टा व चालकी के आदिवासी जमीन मालिकों ने बैठक कर विरोध जताया। विरोध के बाद राष्ट्रपति, मुख्य न्यायाधीश व राज्यपाल के नाम आवेदन बनाकर जिला प्रशासन के माध्यम से भेजा। महासभा के केंद्रीय अध्यक्ष जॉन मिरन मुंडा ने बैठक को संबोधित करते हुए कहा कि राज्य सरकार कैबिनेट की बैठक कर टोंटो अंचल के एसीसी सीमेंट कारखाना चाईबासा-झींकपानी को एफ-3 का नया लीज की स्वीकृति 63 एकड़ 26 डिसमिल भूमि का लीज बंदोबस्ती किया है। जिसका जमीन मालिक विरोध करते है। हमारा आदिवासी बहुल क्षेत्र संविधान का 5वां अनुसूची के तहत पेशा कानून (ग्रामसभा) और समता जजमेंट का निर्णय ही मान्य है। जिसका अनुपालन नहीं हुआ।

झारखंड सरकार ने विधानसभा चुनाव से पूर्व पार्टी फंड करोड़ों रुपये लेने के उद्देश्य से ही कैबिनेट बैठक बुलाकर आनन-फानन में यह निर्णय लिया है क्योंकि 63 एकड़ 26 डिसमिल भूमि का लीज बंदोबस्ती को एक मुश्त रकम मात्र 5 करोड़ 78 लाख 82 हजार 900 रुपये में 30 वर्षो का लीज दिया गया। जबकि यहां के आदिवासी जमीन मालिक पूर्व की लीज में मिलने वाली नौकरी और मुआवजा को लेकर आज भी आंदोलनरत हैं, कंपनी प्रबंधन रैयतों के साथ धोखा दिया है। जिस कारण से एफ-3 का नया लीज की स्वीकृति का विरोध कर रहे हैं। विरोध करने वालों में पोदना पाड़ेया, सुधीर गोडसोरा, मुन्ना सवैयां, साहू हेस्सा, शशि हेस्सा, रघुनाथ हेस्सा, गोरवारी बोयपाई, महती सिंह, लखन गोप, मंगल हेस्सा आदि शामिल थे।

The post एसीसी सीमेंट कंपनी को एफ-3 का नया लीज देने का जमीन मालिकों ने किया विरोध appeared first on SAMATA.

Anand Yagnik speaking at the Gujarat consultation

By Our Representative
A recent seminar in Delhi, held in the presence of two Union ministers, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Ashwini Kumar Choubey, has been told that a whopping 10 million workers working in the mining sector are exposed to silica dust, with 50% of them suffering from silicosis, a deadly incurable lungs disease.

Participants, who included representatives of top civil society groups mines, minerals & People (mm&P) and Samata, doctors, labour unions and silicosis affected workers, referred to radiological investigations conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research, which found that 56% of mine workers in Rajasthan are affected with silicosis or silica-tuberculosis.

Ashok Shrimali, secretary general, mm&P, said, though some states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana have come up with a silicosis rehabilitation policy for the affected families, the implementation is skewed.

Administrative bottlenecks bog the process of identification, diagnosis and compensation to the silicosis victims. Workers are told to produce their job cards, certificate of registration with their employers or mine owners, which is impossible to obtain in most cases, Shrimali added.

Kulaste, who is minister of state for steel, admitted that the health of workers is of least concern to the government and the corporates. The major concern is only the profits. Choubey, minister of state for health, on the other hand, confined his focus on how traditional medicines can cure diseases, stating, there is a need to rethink on how to overcome people from the harms of occupational health issues.

The Delhi seminar was a culmination of similar consultations held in Udaipur (Rajasthan), Bhavnagar (Gujarat) and Dahanu (Maharshtra) on the adverse impact of mining on people’s livelihood and health, especially vulnerable sections such as tribals, women and children, and how illegal mining has made things worse.

While district mineral funds for the welfare of workers are collected as cess from those who are involved in the mining industry, only a pittance is used. Thus, in Rajasthan, it was pointed out, Rs 2,249 crore has been collected, but the utilization is “poor”. In Gujarat, as against the total collection of Rs 610 crore, only Rs 200 crores has been utilized.

High priority areas like health, drinking water, education, welfare of women and children and disabled, skill development and sanitation are rarely addressed, the seminars in Rajasthan and Gujarat were told.

“Salinity is a brutal environmental factors limiting productivity of crops, which are sensitive to high concentrations of salts in the soil”

Zinc mining and smelting activities in Rajasthan, it was pointed out, causes stomach cramps, nausea, and vomiting, affects cholesterol balance, diminishes immune system function, and even said to cause infertility.

Hazardous deposits, it was suggested, get mixed with the top soil affecting the cultivation of crops. The contaminated water leads to communicable diseases. Stunting, biological disorders at birth are increasing among the new born in the villages surrounding Jawar mines, it was pointed out.

The seminar in Gujarat focused on the campaign against the UltraTech Cement Ltd, which has been mining limestone in the coastal areas of Mahuva and Talaja in Bhavnagar district impacting more than 1,700 hectares of 13 villages. Villagers and social activists claimed that mining is happening without complying to the environmental norms.

Limestone mining makes the nearby water saline and makes land saline, said Anand Yagnik, senior Gujarat High Court advocate, adding, salinity is one of the most brutal environmental factors limiting the productivity of crops, which are sensitive to high concentrations of salts in the soil, and the area of land affected by it is increasing day by day.

Dr Kanubhai Kalsaria, who has launched the campaign, said, streams and rivers get altered when mines pump excess water from limestone quarries into downstream natural channels. This increases the danger of flooding, and any pollutants or changes in water quality affects the surface water.

As water and rock are removed from mines, the support they give to underwater is gone, creating sinkholes, Kalsaria said, adding, Bhavnagar district is considered the onion capital of India. Mining is taking away the only source of income of the farmers in the region and is having a huge toll on their livelihood.

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